The Processing Foundation of Head-Final Relative Clauses

Abstract

This article examines the special processing characteristics of head-final relative clauses. As head-final relative clauses superficially resemble other prenominal modifiers such as adjectivals, stative verbs, and adjunctive/complement clauses, their status as a distinct kind has constantly been challenged. We present existing processing evidence to show that head-final relative clauses should be distinguished from other prenominal modifiers as they do involve structure-based filler-gap integrations (like those of head-initial relative clauses) and observe universal extraction effects. The evidence includes: (a) processing differences between possessive relative clauses and adverbial relative clauses in Mandarin; (b) processing differences between gapped relative clauses and adjunct clauses with null pronouns in Korean; and (c) subject-extracted relative clauses being easier to process than object-extracted relative clauses in head-final relativization. Key words: relative clauses, sentence comprehension, head-final structures, Chinese

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